Lead Me to Dreams
by DjDangerLove
Summary: Quill used to have nightmares, but by the time the Guardians of the Galaxy came to be, he thought he was done chasing them away. But Rocket has them, and Quill starts to wonder if nightmares ever really do go away. Friendship one-shot.


Peter Quill has always had nightmares.

Whether it'd be monsters ripping at his flesh, or some ghoul from a horror movie he wasn't supposed to watch, he'd wake up screaming, heart pounding a little too fast for a boy so innocent, and sitting in the dark, he thought he'd never find his dreams again.

But his mom, she had a way of proving people wrong. She'd always come through the door with tired eyes that looked no less caring than the day she gave birth to him, saying, "Hush, baby. It's alright. It's just a dream."

He'd track her tall silhouette across the room until she bathed in the lamp light on his nightstand and when he could finally see her perched on the side of his bed, he'd wipe roughly at the tears staining his cheeks and shake his head. "No, momma. They're nightmares."

She'd smile at him then, as if she didn't know that nightmares were things of horror and fear, and tuck him back down into bed. "Now, Peter, I've told you. Nightmares are just places without music. But if you listen close enough, you'll be able to hear it and find your dreams again," she'd whisper, then a song would flow from her lips like a sunrise chasing away the night, and she'd lead him back to dreams.

One day, though, he found out that nightmares can happen when you're not even asleep. The one he had, it was much worse than any hungry beast, or savage ghost. It was the death of his mother, and when she left, he thought that the music that guided him back to dreams had too.

However, when he would wake up on Yondu's ship, alone and cold in a dark room that had a door that wouldn't open for a tired mother coming to lull away the nightmares, he would put his headphones on, push the play button on his walkman, and by the time he fell asleep, he would convince himself that nightmares weren't real until he woke up the next morning.

By the time the Guardians of the Galaxy came to be, he thought that he'd chased away every nightmare, but he was wrong. Somewhere along the way, somehow, he found out that his teammates had nightmares, too. Now, he wasn't about to tell them that their horrors could be diminished by listening to a cassette tape, because it sounded ridiculous even to his own ears and if he was completely honest, he didn't want to share the secret his mom gave to him. It belonged to him just like the tape and those songs, but then one night Rocket stumbled out of his bed yelling things like, "Please, don't do this to me," and, "Just kill me," and Quill found himself wanting to tell Rocket what his mother had told him all those years ago. He just never knew how.

* * *

Rocket has always had nightmares.

Whether it be bolts and screws, or people watching him suffer, he wakes up clawing at the sheets, ripping them to shreds just to get them off of him. He stumbles out of the bed, because it's everything like an operating table, but sometimes it isn't enough. The whole ship feels like it's one big cage, trapping him in a place of assessment and uncertainty.

He isn't one to panic, but there's a part of him, a part that who ever created him couldn't leave out, that beats so fiercely against his ribcage he thinks it's going to break him from the inside out. One day, he just knows that it will and he starts to wonder if it's not today.

He's past the part of shredding his sheets, because now, he's running through the ship trying to find the exit door. His heart, for ever how artificial he believes it to be, hammers like they've given him the strongest one they had and it takes all he has not to voice his discomfort at the irony of it all.

He hears his name being spoken, but his mind is too frantic to realize the voice is questioning and concerned, not loud and abusive. He picks up speed and turns a corner, paws slipping against the slick floor with claws so desperate to make purchase that he's probably leaving scratches.

"Rocket? What's wrong?," the voice asks, and it's so loud and so close, that Rocket jumps, because he thought he was farther ahead than that and the stumble sends him to the floor.

"Shit!," the voice carries over the sound of Rocket rolling across the ground and slamming into something, but the raccoon continues to scramble to get to all fours after he stops and when he does, he realizes that he's collided with exit door.

He jumps for the handle, feels his paws wrap around the cool steel, and pulls with everything in him, but the handle doesn't budge. Instead, his paws slip against it and he falls back down to the floor.

"Rocket!"

There's heavy footfalls thundering behind him so loud he can feel the ground shake, but he doesn't turn around to see who it is. He knows that no matter who they are, they'll always keep him in a cage. He claws at the door, leaving thin, vertical marks down the length of it as he climbs back up to the handle. He pulls, punches, and kicks at it, slipping a few times and making more piercing grazes in the door until there's someone grabbing him, and he's pulling, punching, and kicking at them, too.

"Shit, Rocket! Stop! It's me! It's just me! It's Quill!"

The person holding him tries to catch his arms and feet, but Rocket knows better, knows their tactics for getting him back into the cage. He starts to anticipate another presence coming up and grabbing the back of his neck to stick that sharp needle in him, but he feels his head spin when he's dropped to the floor and pinned by the one person who has him instead.

He's down to bucking and twisting, but it's all he has and he does so with every ounce of fight left in him.

"Damn it, Rocket! Look at me!," the voice shouts, but Rocket doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see the person that would do this to him. He tells himself he's not going to, squeezes his eyes tighter, and turns his head as far away as possible, but then the voice is low, and if he can get his brain to function past his trepidation, he'll realize it's pleading with him. "Please, Rocket. Just look at me."

Rocket, against every instinct he has, opens his eyes and turns his head enough to look at whoever is holding him hostage long enough to wish that he hadn't. He squeezes his eyes tighter, because out of every nightmare he's ever had, this one scares him the most.

But he stops fighting, sags underneath the hands pinning him to the ground, and just asks, "Why?," because after everything, he wants to know why Quill would do this to him, too.

"What? Hey, Rocket, you with me, buddy?"

He flinches against the hand that suddenly pats his cheek, even though it feels nothing like a touch with intentional harm, and he tries to make a break for it when he notices that he's only pinned by one arm.

He reaches out, claws sharp and precise, and swipes at Quill's face just under his cheek bone. He waits until Peter's hand is retracted so that he can cover the thin, red, horizontal lines running across his face before he breaks for the door again, but just as he's about to reach the handle, Quill suddenly appears in front of him, blocking his escape.

His ears fall back and he shrinks away from the man trying to cage him.

"Woah, woah. Hey, listen to me. Just listen to me. You're okay, dude. It was just a nightmare," Quill tries to explain with arms outstretched in a nonthreatening way, but Rocket pulls his ears back further, because his brain can only focus on one thing at a time in its current state and it seems to be panicking at the thought of the man standing over him.

Quill seems to notice, or does so for a different reason Rocket doesn't understand, but Peter squats down in front of the door and does something with his hand like he's motioning something back off to the side before he levels his gaze with the raccoon's. "It's just a nightmare, Rocket. Just a scary as hell nightmare, but that's all it is."

Rocket breaks away from his gaze in favor of looking at the marks he's made on floor between them, before he's back to looking at Quill and the scratches on his face. Suddenly, he feels like the oxygen is being sucked out the room and now he wants to escape for a different reason all together.

He takes a step back, trying to take a deep breath, but he chokes on it and before he can stop coughing, he's trying to take another, and it starts to make the room burst with black dots.

"Peter, do something!," a softer voice calls. Between the dark edges, he sees a green figure step forward and the way Quill reacts to it seems like he knew she was standing there all along. He does that thing with his hand again, backing something off, and the green figure and two other large shapes disappear, before he moves slowly towards the raccoon.

"Come on, buddy, you gotta calm down," Quill reasons, and he's back to lowering himself down onto the ground in a squat.

Rocket tries to swallow, tries to wrangle enough air to say something, anything, but he can't, so he shakes his head instead, and chokes on the lack of oxygen his brain has convinced him of.

He's dizzy now, feels the world sway, or maybe it's him, he's not sure. He starts rubbing at his throat and his chest, desperately asking for his body to function, but it won't. He begins falling forward, the weight of everything pushing him down, and every moment in his life has taught him that this fall should hurt the worst, but it doesn't.

It's unexpectedly gentle, and the world folds around him like he always imagined it would if it ever gave a damn about him. He's still unable to breathe, but it's a soft, wheezing battle now, instead of a harsh, hyperventilated one. He's fine with it, because he's too busy seeing how the world feels when it's not beating you down, but then his haven turns and he realizes he's being folded up against someone because when they say things like, "Listen," and, "Just breathe," he feels it tremble against the side of his face.

He squirms against it, because he's never known anything like this before, but the vibration against his face picks up once more and it flows along with the sound of deep humming coming from above him, and for the first time in his life, he thinks he's found a dream, instead of a nightmare.

* * *

Peter holds Rocket against him, pushes his face far enough into his chest so that they can't see one another, and he starts humming that song his mother always used to sing to him as a boy to lead him away from the places of bad dreams.

He used to think he was done chasing away nightmares, thought he had it figured out and he'd never have to deal with them anymore. But kneeling there on the ground with Rocket, he realized that nightmares never go away. They may not be yours, but they can still affect you. They still find you, like how his nightmares always found his mother, and how Rocket's seem to always find him.

You see, his mother never chased his nightmares away so he'd know how to get rid of them. She did it so he'd know how to accept them, whether or not he could see them.

She never saw the monster trying to eat him, or the ghost trying to take his soul, but she'd always tell him they were just places without music, like all nightmares are the same whether they're about an imaginary creature or a heartless cyberneticist, and that he was no less of a boy, of a person, because he had them. He just needed to listen, he just needed to find something from somewhere else to follow.

It's not easy, and he knows that it's not, because he has memories of countless nights where he had to listen for so long that he thought his ears would bleed. So he knows that Rocket will wander out to the place without music again, the place where he's nothing but a series of letters and numbers locked in a cage, because he's going to wander there, too.

And every time they find themselves in that nightmare, or any other one, he'll lead them back to dreams.


End file.
